The Token (#10): Shepard (17 page)

Rose

It's my break.

I'm allowed to look at my text messages. I have to.

Charlie will send me pictures. He always does.
The sweetheart.

I move through the breakroom, my hip hitting the countertop of the little kitchenette.

I grimace but hardly notice. A ping sounds, and an image fills my cell screen.

It's a Lego tower. A perfect, brilliant work of art.

For a five-year-old.

I smile like I just saw an original Picasso. Love swells my chest, and pride tightens it.

He's done
so
well.

“Hey, Rose,” one of the other tellers greets me as she walks by.

“Hey, Naomi,” I reply absently, brushing away a stray hair that's come loose from my topknot. My eyes are all for the new little creation my boy made during his first week of kindergarten.

My heart flutters. I cried ten gallons of tears last week when I had to send him off. My sadness had been evil.

I guess all mothers feel that way. I don't know for sure. I'm not really a mom.

I'm an aunt.

But his real mom's dead. So I'll have to do.

I bite my lip, rolling the plump flesh inside my mouth and gnawing at it. My finger runs over the colorful blocks with a loving touch, my screen magnifies, and I see his left hand clutched over the top. A tower almost as tall as he is threatens to topple, but not before the teacher got the pic.

I text back rapidly. “Beautiful.”

There's no return text.

I glance at the time on my cell. Naptime.

My heartbeat regains its slow rhythm. I try to overcome the panic at not immediately hearing back from him. I'm sort of a gloom-and-doom type.

I haven't seen Charlie's father in a year.
The fucking loser.

Time feels pregnant with potential, swollen with his promise of getting his son back.

Over my dead body.

“Rose.”

I know that voice and sigh. I lift my chin, meeting his gaze.

My boss stands there, his eyes steady on the clock over my left shoulder.

One minute past break.

Ned's about ten years older than I am. That puts him around thirty-four. He's married. Not that the little fact of his status as
taken
stops him from making passes at me whenever he can.

Ned found out fast that I don't date.

Ever.

I sure as hell don't date married men who are my boss.

Some of the girls don't care that he’s married. They rise in the ranks faster for blowing him in his office. I've been a teller at this bank since high school graduation. My first boss died of a heart attack last year. Orville was a good man.

Now Ned's here.

He smirks, obviously enjoying the discovery of my minor transgression.

I slide off the stool, realizing I missed having a snack. Not great for the old hypoglycemia.
Stupid, Rose.
Oh well, maybe I can pop an M&M or two at my station.

He leans down next to my face as I pass him, his hot breath singeing my temple. “Don't let it happen again.”

Sacrificing my body’s natural aversion to a man, I try not to jerk away. I feel an expression of disgust seat itself on my face as I regard him.

His beady brown eyes slim on me with a hate that I don't deserve. Just because I say
no
doesn't mean I suck.

But to Ned, my lack of interest means exactly that.

I turn away quickly, trying to pretend those interchanges don't bug me or make me nervous.

That’s crap, of course. Anxious sweat stings my palms and breaks out underneath my armpits. I hate feeling stressed where I work. My fingers curl around the cell.

I have Charlie.

I have a job. I have a hell of a lot to be thankful for. Crying over my perv boss like a scared little bitch won't solve it.

I just won't be late anymore. Even a minute. A second. I don't want to give the jerk anything to have over me.

I scoot my stool with the rolling wheels underneath the counter and lift my sign that says Next Window.

I'm ready to take money now.

*

I hate my boobs.

Other women think I've got it made or something. I fill out clothes nice, sure. But I have to wear two sports bras so the girls don't drive me crazy with bouncing. Besides, it kind of hurts if I don't.

Like now.

I jog around nine-minute miles most days. On the weekends, I go a little nuts and do around six-mile runs, then I'm a true jogger, slowing down too just under tens. During the week, between my job and Charlie, I can only manage around three times a week. I take Sundays off. That's Charlie's day.

My day.

I swear I live at Scenic Park. Rumor has it we had a mayor back in the 1970s who was out of control for parks and threw one in everywhere there was land.

Kent needs it. The city's a little armpit bedroom community to Seattle now. Infrastructure was not well thought out, and the traffic is a rat's nest of too many cars in clogged arteries. The roads of Kent have cholesterol, and there's not a damn thing we can do to stop the impending heart attack.

The valley bisects the east and west hills of the city. Kent's got long fingers of ownership that travel all the way to Federal Way to the west, cutting a path through that town and still claiming a narrow swath that belongs to the City of Kent.

I don't care about the impractical parks that could have been made into more roads or wider ones. I just like to jog the paths of Scenic Park and have a free, safe place to hang with my nephew.

The ritual of running erases my mind's problems and takes me on a journey of the soul without introspection. I can
not
think for that hour I'm pounding paths that wind through trees.

I don't think about my creeper boss. I don't think about Charlie's real dad, my sister’s murderer.

I just run.

Charlie loves the park. If the wind's strong, we fly kites that get caught in the Douglas fir trees, tails like rainbow arcs toss their color in the deep blue of summer that comes late in the Pacific Northwest.

A wave of light-headedness washes over me, making my stride stutter.

Dammit.

My little waist pouch taps my hip softly as I run. I hate stopping the rhythm I set when I run. My sports watch says I was doing high eights. That's pretty fast for my slow ass. A tight smile stretches my lips. Just one more quarter mile, and my car will be in sight.

I can make it.

I take the last bit of my run hard, seeing what I've got left.

When my little Smartcar comes into sight I slow to a walk, cruising right past the shiny white toaster.

I'm begging to puke if I just stop and hop in. Nope. First, it's the ten-minute cool-down walk, then it's stretching.

First things first. I spring a Jolly Rancher candy free of my little pouch, tear off the wrapper, and stuff it inside my mouth, striding back and forth.

I probably look like a crazy pacer. I suck hard through my nose and breathe out my mouth, controlling my air. Sweet and sour apple flavor explodes inside my mouth as I suck on the candy, willing it to settle me and ground my fuzzy brain.

Being tied to protein and ready sugars gets old, but it could be worse.
Oh well.

My tongue rolls the candy around in my mouth, my heartbeats slow, and my shakiness subsides.

I plant my hands at my hips, elbows out, and walk with my head down.

Back and forth, back and forth.
I don't see, hear, or think.

I crunch my candy and cool down. That's probably why I didn't notice him at first.

Drake moves into my path.

I stop as if I just walked into an invisible wall. It sure feels like I did.

The wings of my elbows fold, and that heartbeat I had under control riots inside a chest that suddenly doesn't feel like taking in air.

“Hello, Rose.”

He's just as I remember him from last year. Huge. Greasy. Sinister.

Dangerous.

I don't reply, pivoting quickly. I move to my car.

He's so fast, his hand is on the handle before I touch it.

I make a little noise of distress.

God, please.

Please.

His smile is cruel as he grits out, “We're gonna talk, bitch.”

My heart flies up my throat. I try to reply but can't.

His hand grips my bicep, fingers biting the tender flesh just above the elbow.

“There's witnesses, Drake.” I'm so proud of the evenness of my voice.

He nods. “I know that. We're gonna talk. Here. Now.”

I swallow, craning my neck to get a good look at him. He's over six feet to my five feet, seven. His biker gang tats are all over him. The only tat-free space on his big body is his face. He reeks like body odor and ashtrays. Underneath that is pure evil.

I shudder.

His smile widens. He's so pleased by the effect he has on me, and I'm helpless to
not
react. Drake is the most repugnant man I've ever met in the flesh.

He drops my arm as though it burns him. I know that's not the case. He's told me I look as good as my sister. When he said that, tears burst from my eyeballs. Not a few. A flood.

He laughed.

The leather of his motorcycle jacket creaks when he shifts his weight. “Hearing's coming up.”

I know that. I've lived knowing that.

My feet take me a few steps out of his reach. “I know.”

“They're going to give me my boy back.” A slow, false grin spreads on his face.

I shake my head, my lips thinning. “They'll take one look at you and give me another five years.”

“You fucking
bitch
. Give me visitation rights.”

I swallow my fear, as his hands become flesh hammers at his side.

“What rights?” I whisper in a choked voice, my fingers splaying over my heart. “What rights did Anna have?”

“She stepped out on me,” Drake says, crossing his arms over his steroid-muscled chest.

“She
walked
out on you. Big difference. But if that helps you sleep at nigh
t…
”

His eyes slim down on me. “I sleep like a baby.” He puts a
V
around his lips and his tongue punches out. Wagging at me.

Disgust ripples through me. “What are you? Twelve?”

I shake my head, turning to walk back to my car. Defeated.

I have to see this maniac again in a week. I should have known he couldn't wait until then.

He reaches out, snagging my wrist. He grinds the small bones together. “You
will
say you're willing to give me visitation, or I'll make it so you wished you had.”

A whimper slips out.

Drake likes the noise. His hold tightens slightly, then he drops my arm.

I fight not to rub my wrist.

I feel tears burn my eyes, knowing what my sister went through before she died. A taste of Drake's abuse is enough to last me a lifetime.

“You can't force me. Charlie's all I have of Anna. He's a human being, not a pawn for your control.”

His thumb hits his chest. “He's my fucking kid. Unless that crack was fucking someone I don't know about?” His dark eyebrows twitch upward.

I wish she had.

But Charlie is all his. Anna had only just started dating another guy when she was murdered. Who knows if she ever slept with him? Charlie was already here, so it’s a moot point.

Drake was the only man Anna slept with, as far as I know.

I shake my head.

He lifts his shoulders hard, driving them to his ears. Heavy gauges distend the lobes. They’re jet black, like his clothes.

Like his heart.

“I'll be there.” I jerk the handle up and heave myself inside, slamming the door.

Drake strides to the window and gives a single hard rap of his knuckles against the glass.

I flinch.

Starting the car, I crack the window.

“It's not you being there that matters. It's you vouching for me, cunt.”

I hate that word. It's so dirty from his mouth.

I'm more than the sum of my parts. Ineffectual rage blossoms like a dark flower inside me, swarming my body with heat.

His lips twist savagely. “Yeah. I see how you are. What you'd like to do to me. But you can't. I'm in control, see?”

I do see, but I won't be manipulated. This won't stop. If I cave to Drake's demands, he won't stop there. He'll want more.